Election results bring echoes of 1994 GOP takeover

  • November 11th, 2010
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William L. Spence

Up Front

We've been through this before.

An unpopular Democratic health care reform proposal ... concerns about big government and fiscal irresponsibility ... a resulting Republican landslide.

Deja vu.

It was 1994, the Year of the Newt and the Contract with America. Voter dissatisfaction with the so-called "HillaryCare" reform proposal and its employer-provided health insurance mandate helped Republicans pick up 54 seats and capture the majority in the U.S. House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years. In eastern Washington, Speaker of the House Tom Foley was booted out of office after 30 years, making him the first sitting speaker since the Civil War to lose a re-election bid.

Nancy Pelosi can at least say she didn't share that fate. Whatever else happened, she managed to retain her own congressional seat in last week's debacle, although she'll no longer be speaker after leading Democrats to their worst midterm election showing since 1938.

Frankly, it's hard to feel much sympathy for her - particularly when, in a recent interview with ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer, she assessed her own performance the past three years as "job well done."

What a spectacularly self-serving fantasy. In 1974, after two years of Watergate scandals and the resignation of President Richard Nixon, Republicans only lost 49 House seats. This year, Democrats are on track to lose 63 seats - yet Pelosi has "no regrets." She feels she did good work.

She isn't alone in that. Other Democratic leaders share her view. Rather than take ownership and accept responsibility - rather than step back and consider the possibility that their arrogant, shove-it-down-the-public's-throat strategy on health care reform and the perennial "what, me worry?" approach to federal spending may have caused the party's defeat - they blame the recession. The election wasn't a referendum on them, they say. It was just voters expressing frustration with the economy.

It's mind-boggling to think any rational being could actually believe such a thing. What universe have they been living in the last two years?

On the other hand, what if they're right? Better times, better results - what if voters really are that fickle?

There is some evidence for this. In Idaho, for example, unemployment is now at 9.1 percent, public school funding has been cut for the first time in state history, tens of millions of tax dollars goes uncollected every year because lawmakers aren't willing to hire someone to pick up the phone and tell tax delinquents to pay their bills - yet somehow voters see "blame the Democrats" as a legitimate response, even though Republicans have been in control of the Legislature for 50 years.

So maybe Pelosi's fantasy isn't so ridiculous. Maybe voters really are too shallow to understand what's going on. If our votes are based on something other than a politician's actual job performance, then why would they ever take election outcomes personally?

That's the cynical view. I'm more inclined, however, to think Congressman Walt Minnick called the situation correctly more than a year ago.

During a meeting of top party officials from 13 Western states, Minnick warned them if Democrats didn't get their act together and take fiscal responsibility and bipartisan leadership seriously, their term in power would be cut short. Fiscal responsibility, he said, "is the issue that will determine if we continue to govern. Whether we can govern effectively and govern from the middle will determine the future of Western Democrats and the fate of the country."

Had Pelosi and others listened, maybe they'd still be in power and Walt would still have a job.

And while we're blaming voters and Democrats for last week's election results, we might as well add at least one Republican to the mix.

Let's go back to the Contract with America. Fulfilling their promise of fiscal responsibility, House Republicans approved a balanced budget amendment in 1995 and sent it on to the Senate - where it died one vote short of the required two-thirds majority. Oregon Sen. Mark Hatfield was the only Republican to vote against the measure.

Since then, the federal debt has almost tripled, from $4.85 trillion to $13.73 trillion.

So maybe last week was really Hatfield's fault. Had the amendment been approved, voters may not have worried about Congress bankrupting the country. The Tea Party could have stayed home eating crumpets. Better results in '95 may have led to better times in 2010, and Pelosi's fantasy of a job well done could actually have come true.

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Spence covers politics for the Tribune. He may be contacted at or (208) 848-2274.